Boemo Diale
Boemo Diale (b. 2000) is a painter and sculptor who combines media to engage in a playful and dynamic historical dialogue with traditional art. Focusing on feminism, bodily autonomy, and the response to mental illness, her work remains light-hearted and bright. She utilizes symbolism and abstraction in her vibrant figures to draw positive reflections on heavy subjects.
Boemo Diale is a multi-disciplinary artist whose highly personal work explores identity, generational trauma, dreams, and manifestations, speaking to the broader cultural inheritance of South African women. Voluptuous obsidian bodies and more traditional feminine forms take turns resisting against and then complying with the limitations of her iridescent primordial environments. Diale’s visual narration takes on a dreamlike feeling with vivid tropical, graffitied scenes, and her figures often appear caught within the confines of a vessel or pushed up against the borders of her painted surface, belying a fierce questioning of her sense of place and ability to effect change. Diale’s work on film, canvas, and paper is strongly impacted by her desire to connect with her maternal lineage and tell inter-generational, place-specific stories. She introduces representations from her personal family archive into whimsical interior scenes, creating a tension between the artist’s reality and her envisaged world.
Diale completed an internship at David Krut Workshop (DKW) in July 2022, after having met with David Krut at the Turbine Art Fair in 2021. At the time, she was an Honours student at Wits University studying Film and Television, and she undertook an internship to see how print could influence her practice. Diale's first show with David Krut, titled Can I Play? was held at the 151 Gallery in February 2023. The exhibition presented a series of prints created during her internship at DKW alongside paintings. 2025 saw Diale working collaboratively with DKW printer Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim on a new series of etchings and monotypes. Her work has been featured in group shows at David Krut Projects and, most recently, at the Brooklyn Art Fair and in our New York Gallery as part of South African Artists in New York, our ongoing initiative to showcase South African talent in the US.
Boemo Diale (b. 2000) grew up Rustenburg, Mafikeng and the suburbs of Johannesburg. She completed a printmaking internship at David Krut Workshop (DKW) in July 2022. Diale’s work featured at a booth in the Tomorrows/Today section at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair where she won the Artist Prize (2024). Solo exhibitions include Tswala Gate at Kalashnikovv Gallery (Cape Town, 2025), The Orange Tree of Lemenong at Everard Read Gallery (Cape Town, 2024), Can I Play? at David Krut Projects (Johannesburg, 2023), No Matter How Far I Run at Kalashnikovv Gallery (Johannesburg, 2023), Pink Room at P72 Projects (Johannesburg, 2021), and Permaculture at Kalashnikovv Gallery (Johannesburg, 2021). Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions and at the Brooklyn Art Fair (New York, 2025), the Turbine Art Fair (Sandton, 2021 and 2022) and FNB Art (Johannesburg, 2022).
- 2022 – A Year in Review
- ‘Can I Play?’ by Boemo Diale (2023)
- What’s the Word? Reading Text in Print-based Art (2023)
- Women in the Workshop (2023)
- South African Artists in New York (2024)
- Brooklyn Art Fair (2025)
- David Krut Arts at Latitudes Art Fair (2025)
- David Krut Artspace x Kalashnikovv Gallery at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (2025)
- South African Artists in New York x Kalashnikovv Gallery (2025)
- Still Life: A Contemporary Arrangement (2025)
- David Krut Arts at the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair (2026)
- BOEMO DIALE: EXPANDING VISUAL VOCABULARY WITH DAVID KRUT ARTS
- David Krut Projects at the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair
- Defining Divine: New works from Boemo Diale
- The Artist’s Library – Boemo Diale ‘Can I Play?’
- Boemo Diale – Manifestations in Print
- Printmaking, Art and Film: Boemo Diale on her internship at the David Krut Workshop, Arts on Main
Artworks
News
BOEMO DIALE: EXPANDING VISUAL VOCABULARY WITH DAVID KRUT ARTS
May. 12, 2025BOEMO DIALE: EXPANDING VISUAL VOCABULARY WITH DAVID KRUT ARTS Written by Lungile NgcoboCollaborative Printer: Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim Boemo Diale working on an etching...
Tags: Boemo Diale, David Krut Print Workshop, David Krut Projects, David Krut Projects Arts on Main, David Krut Projects Johannesburg, David Krut Workshop, etchings, Exhibition, Intaglio, Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim, PrintmakingDavid Krut Projects at the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair
Mar. 28, 2025Established in the West Chelsea Building in 2001, David Krut Projects Artspace, New York continues to connect the David Krut...
Tags: Arts on Main, David Krut Print Workshop, David Krut Projects, David Krut Projects New York, ExhibitionDefining Divine: New works from Boemo Diale
Jan. 12, 2024"When I speak of the spiritual, I refer to the recognition within everyone that there is a place of mystery...
Tags: David Krut Print Workshop, David Krut Projects Arts on MainThe Artist’s Library – Boemo Diale ‘Can I Play?’
Mar. 1, 2023Written by Danijela Cook While perusing the bookshop shelves to create a display corner for Boemo Diale’s exhibition it seemed...
Tags: Boemo DialeBoemo Diale – Manifestations in Print
Jan. 31, 2023Boemo Diale with one of her paintings. Image courtesy of the artist. Boemo Diale met David Krut at the Turbine...
Tags: Arts on Main, David Krut Print Workshop, MonotypePrintmaking, Art and Film: Boemo Diale on her internship at the David Krut Workshop, Arts on Main
Sep. 15, 2022Written by Boemo Diale My first day in the project space was spent mostly observing and watching. The space itself...
Tags: Arts on Main, Boemo Diale, David Krut Projects, David Krut Projects Arts on Main, David Krut Projects Johannesburg, David Krut Workshop, Internship, Linocut, Monotype, Printmaking